


Cloud City Stables

by HarpiaHarpyja



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Colorado, Cowboy Ben Solo, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Horse Breeder Rey, Horses, Ill-Fated Bondage Attempts, Light Angst, Oral Sex, Questionable business ethics, Rey loves a night of rockabilly dancing, Rodeo Competitions, Slow Burn, everyone needs a damn hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 18:49:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20430737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarpiaHarpyja/pseuds/HarpiaHarpyja
Summary: When Ben Solo's employer expresses interest in working with a particular horse stable to expand rodeo stock, Ben is certain he has an easy solution—he knows the breeder, and it'll be no problem at all to strike a good deal. He wasn't counting on finding out the stable has changed hands and that Rey Greenacre, the new breeder at the helm of Cloud City Stables, drives a much harder bargain ... and abhors the rodeo.





	Cloud City Stables

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LostInQueue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostInQueue/gifts).

> Feb 18 2020 -- This note is shamefully overdue BUT. This fic is not abandoned and certainly hasn't been forgotten. I'm hoping to get properly back to it in the next few weeks. Updates may be slow but not....months and months and months slow. Cheers!
> 
> This fic is my response to LostInQueue's prompt for TWD's Plaid Paramour summer fic exchange.
> 
> _'Rey is a well known horse breeder and Ben is a cowboy looking to purchase horses for Snoke’s rodeo and she denies him. He doesn’t let up that easily. Rey agrees under one condition he has to go through the process of breeding the horses given, raising them, and then selling them off to that man’s cruelty instead of any other circuit that upholds animal rights._
> 
> _Ben of course takes her up on it going through the steps of breeding (this can be as vague or descriptive as you want but the thought of Rey making Ben do it sends me into giggle overload). Raising the horses brings on a bond, and then Rey gives him the contracts to sign over and can he or can’t he go through with it?'_
> 
> The chapter count as of now is an estimate based on my outline, though it may shift a bit as I get more written and things start to flesh out more. I'll also be updating tags more as the story develops. You can find me on Twitter at thisgarbagepic1 and on Tumblr at thisgarbagepicker.
> 
> Thanks for reading! (And thanks to glovekinkqueen and inmyownidiom for beta reading!)

Ben Solo knew better than to make a promise he wasn’t positive he could keep. 

He should have known better, at least. He’d never had much luck with those sorts of promises—the kept ones, that is—and was far more used to being on the receiving end of the broken ones. He was used to being the one who was disappointed, the one who was told “Sorry it didn’t work out the way I planned, I’ll do better next time,” the one who felt like a rube for believing it in the first place. Usually, he was  _ not  _ the one who made a foolhardy, cocksure statement and now found himself grasping at straws to pull it together and make it happen. 

How was it he’d thought this whole promise thing would be different from the other side?

Probably because Ben Solo was also a man who made things happen. That was the one benefit to being let down so many times: eventually, he’d stopped depending on other people at all. It was all on him, whatever ‘it’ happened to be in any given situation. Currently, ‘it’ was acquiring a new horse for Snoke’s rodeo. One so new it wasn’t even born yet, barely a twinkle in the dewy brown eyes of its prospective dam and sire. And currently, the one roadblock to fulfilling this promise was also the only breeder Snoke wanted to work with. The one Ben had assured him would be easy pickings in terms of making a deal, because he had an in.

Oh, he’d thought he had an in. Ben might have forgotten to mention he hadn’t seen the breeder in question—a family friend by the name of Lando Calrissian—since he was thirteen years old. He certainly hadn’t realized Calrissian had since retired from his post at Cloud City Stables and passed the management of the business off to a protégé Ben had never even heard of until a week ago. His reservations were only somewhat allayed when he was able to confirm she had acquired quite a bit of renown over the last couple years, and no, Cloud City was not about to fall into financial ruin and disrepute.

The wonders of the internet age.

Unfortunately, that protégé didn’t seem to like him very much. Through the crackle of speakerphone, he could hear Freya Greenacre’s annoyance so clearly it made his jaw tighten with reciprocal distaste.

“You’re a very persistent man, Mr. Ren.”

Why was she saying it like he was supposed to be insulted? It sure as hell wasn’t a “no,” which was a distinct improvement over the last time he’d tried to negotiate with her. He leaned back on the bumper of his truck and dragged his bootheel through the dirt. 

“Yes, I am.” 

“Some might call that annoying, you know.”

He raised an eyebrow, even though she was seventy miles away. “Call it whatever you want, Ms. Greenacre. It sounds like I have your attention.”

“I haven’t hung up on you. Yet.” A cloud bank rolled over the glare of late-afternoon sun and cast the field not so much into darkness as into a washed-out version of itself, leaching the bright white of the lingering snow cover into a dull, flat gray. “Though, as you may recall from our previous communications, I have no interest in dealing with rodeos looking to purchase stock. The fact that you remember our policies being different ten years ago doesn’t change that.”

Ben swore under his breath and glared at the screen. If he glared hard enough, she might quail under the power of that look the way anyone else would have in a face-to-face meeting. To his disappointment, he got the distinct impression that, wherever Ms. Greenacre was, she was not quailing. What he was really hoping for was a real, in-person discussion, glares and all, but so far they had only communicated via e-mail and phone. In fact, this was only the second time he’d actually heard her voice. Last time, she’d told him she would need to call him back, in a crisp English accent that made him feel as if she’d just brushed him off her shoulder. 

That had been a week ago, and she hadn’t gotten back to him at all, so he’d initiated the call today. She’d answered after four rings, and her acerbic greeting (“ _ I knew you didn’t respond to direct rejection, Mr. Ren, but I’d hoped you might have the decency to take a hint. _ ”) told him that she had saved his number but would have preferred not to see it come up on her phone ever again. Obliquely encouraging, that was.

“Yet we’re still talking,” he pointed out. “So your hardline stance must not be so hardline after all.”

“You’re not—” 

“Let me come by, try to change your mind. If you’re unconvinced by then, I’ll set my sights elsewhere.”

Fat chance of telling that to Snoke, but Ben would cross that dark, narrow, unwelcoming bridge when he came to it. If he came to it. He didn’t intend to. This had been his idea, his plan, and he was not going to be the one to tell his boss,  _ Wait, you know what, never mind _ .  _ Maybe we should get in touch with old Hutt’s out near Medicine Bow and see what stock they’re dealing in these days. _

There was a long pause, enough that he began to wonder if the connection had just dropped out. It happened out here more often than he liked. 

Then, she sighed. “If you’d like to make the trip, then you may make an appointment to come by and have a look at the animals. As a visitor.”

He’d been expecting more of a fight here, so it took him a moment to respond. He pushed off from the truck, grabbed his phone, took it off speaker, and paced a ways, squinting as the sun returned and warmed the back of his neck beneath the collar of his jacket. Not to be outdone, the wind gusted hard enough to burn his cheeks until he spun on his heel to walk with it to his back.

“Ah. Great. Thank you.”

“Let me be clear, this is not a business arrangement, nor a suggestion of one to come.”

“‘Course not, ma’am. Understood.”

She hummed skeptically. The sound of it against his ear, slightly tinny, sent an unexpected but pleasant tickle over his scalp. He heard the sound of rapid typing and her making distracted tutting sounds to herself as she presumably looked through her schedule. It seemed to be taking a while. Ben had no doubt she was a busy woman, but he couldn’t help thinking she was keeping him waiting on purpose.

“I can fit you in next Friday. March eighteenth. Let’s say eleven in the morning. Can you make that?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll look forward to seeing you then, Mr. Ren.”

He doubted that. Every word was uttered in a way that suggested she meant the precise opposite.

“The feeling is mutual, Ms. Greenacre. Thanks.”

“My pleasure.” 

She hung up without another word.

“My pleasure,” Ben echoed under his breath to the frost-covered hood of his truck, in what he thought was probably a piss-poor imitation of her accent and best affected in privacy. Maybe never again. Though if he had his way, he would be getting quite familiar with it. There was always time to improve.

=

After finishing her call with Mr. Ren, Rey resolved that she would not let herself be bothered by it. There was nothing to be bothered by. She wasn’t actually going to sell him a horse—she wasn’t going to sell him so much as a sack of feed—so it wasn’t worth letting it cast a pall over the rest of her day. And it hadn’t. She hadn’t thought of him or his impending visit at all until that evening, after she’d straightened up her little office and walked over to the house, just down a short dirt path that skimmed the perimeter of the pastures and passed by the main barns.

It was a nice night for a walk, cold but clear and starry. Most of the snow that had been there in the morning had dispersed in the wind. She’d taken her time, enjoying the usual smells of chilled hay, frozen soil, warm animal musk, and someone’s fireplace in the distance. Yet as she drew near to the house, a little two-story stone farmhouse, she was struck, as she sometimes was, by how lonely the ranch was at night. During the day, it was impossible to get a minute alone—if she wasn't doing checks in the barns or paddocks, she was dealing with phone calls and e-mails, records and paperwork, stablehands, farriers, veterinarians, visitors, clientele. It was an exhausting routine of early days and late nights.

Rey loved it. At Cloud City Stables, she was needed, trusted, and respected. Over the last six years, she'd been given far more than she deserved—she knew that. There wasn’t a day she didn't battle a rancorous case of imposter syndrome that pelted her with doubts and insisted she wasn’t worthy, that she was nothing, that she hadn’t earned the right to a comfortable life, let alone a happy one. The voice sounded remarkably like her stepfather, which made it easy to hate and shamefully difficult to ignore.

But most days, it was enough to know that the life she had now was hers, whatever stroke of luck had brought it within her grasp. And most days, by the time the sun set and silence began to blanket the property like a fog as animals dozed and employees headed home, Rey was happy to be a little lonely. It reminded her of how far she’d come. Loneliness felt safe and comfortable in the same way her shabby old blanket did.

She was seated at the head of her bed, idly channel surfing as she wrapped that same shabby old blanket a bit tighter around her shoulders, when her eyes drifted to the open laptop near her elbow and caught on the e-mail she’d gotten from Lando a few days ago. It was a reply to the rather snarky one she’d sent him after receiving an unsolicited call from Kylo Ren, who wondered if she hadn’t received the last few inquiries he’d sent her about a business opportunity. 

_ Business opportunity _ . Like he was doing her a favor. Her main takeaway, aside from the fact that Mr. Ren was offensively presumptuous, had been that Lando was to blame, because Mr. Ren claimed to know him. Worse than that, he seemed to expect special treatment because of it.

To Rey's great disappointment, Lando only confirmed the connection—and apparently it was quite close indeed. He spoke of ‘Ben’ with a fond familiarity Rey could detect even through the impersonal medium of her laptop display. 

_ Yeah I know Kylo Ren, though his real name is Ben Solo. I knew his dad, back when I was younger. We were real close. Haven't heard from Ben in at least fifteen years, though. More, if I'm being honest. Don’t really follow the rodeo circuits, so I mostly remember a weedy kid with long hair and big ears and a lot of questions. Good with the horses, too. Same way you are. _

_ As for what he’s asking . . . Look I’m not going to tell you how to run the business. I like to think I left you more than prepared, and I trust you to take CCS in a direction you think will be to its benefit. But if it were me, I’d say give him a chance. Hear what he has to say, at least. He was a good kid, last I knew, and it might do him some good to see how the old place is doing. If you have concerns, you’re creative. I bet you’ll think of something.  _

_ Thinking of flying in for a visit soon, though New Zealand's been good to me! I’ll let you know when I’m in town. Might be July, but you know me—like to keep things interesting. See you, sunshine. _

_ L  _

Well, damn—she’d been doing pretty good at not thinking about her earlier call with Mr. Ren, and now she was thinking about it. This was all Lando’s fault. His message had softened her. Intrigued her, anyway. It made her wonder what sort of person Mr. Ren was, aside from annoying and affiliated with an industry she could never abide. So she'd done something very stupid indeed and told him to stop by in a week and a half for a tour. And knowing her, she'd probably make time to conduct it herself. Keep an eye on him, make him feel like she'd heard him out, then send him on his way, never to be heard from again.

For now, she was doing something she considered moderately less stupid than that: foregoing her channel surfing endeavor to Google Mr. Ren, or Mr. Solo, or whatever he called himself. It was easy to find an assortment of clips on YouTube, where rodeo circuit channels were a dime a dozen. Despite her objections to the nature of his work and the treatment of the animals involved, she had to admit there was something a little mesmerising about watching the sport play out. 

The funny thing was that Mr. Ren didn’t seem shaped for bronc riding at all—he was large and broad and top heavy, and so long-legged that it struck her as a miracle he could get the positioning right to stay on a bucking horse at all, let alone meet the standards of the event. Yet it worked, somehow, in a way that was morbidly fascinating. Kylo Ren rode really, really well, like he was a black-clad extension of his mount (who was a real beauty herself—a robust piebald called Silencer—and almost drew Rey’s eye more than the cowboy). There was a grace to it, almost, despite the fury and intensity of those eight seconds and the bone-rattling force with which he was sometimes thrown before the clock ran down.

So he was good at what he did, it seemed. That was fine. She’d supposed he must be. Except she found it a touch odd that the most recent video she could find of him competing was from almost two years ago. After that it was like he'd disappeared from the circuits altogether. It made her wonder how he'd come to be doing purchasing work for Snoke when there were plenty of willing stock contractors out there, and why he'd stopped riding.

Clearly, it wasn't a moral objection.

And clearly, Rey needed to keep better track of time. She'd just spent almost an hour watching videos of a sport she just short of abhorred and missed the opening scene of  _ Jurassic Park _ . She knew why, too. After a while it was less the athletic display itself and more the fact that she was starting to wonder if Mr. Ren might actually be somewhat handsome—it was hard to get a good idea, between the hat and the hair and the thrashing. Nope, that was not good. Didn't really matter, either. 

With a quiet grumble, she closed her laptop and relaxed back into bed with her blanket and her half-eaten bowl of cheddar popcorn. A moment passed before the sound was echoed from the floor at the foot of the bed; it was rather more doggy in nature, but a grumble nonetheless.

Rey scooted over on the mattress, then leaned forward to give the empty space beside her a firm round of inviting pats.

"Yes, fine, you big baby," she said over the sounds of the television. "Come up here with me for a cuddle."

The scruffy mutt who'd been obediently waiting on the floor jumped to his feet and leapt up onto the bed in a flash, a whirl of rust-and-white fur as he circled twice, then sprawled beside her. Rey had acquired B.B. when he was a pup, a part-shepherd-part-pointer-part-mystery charmer, right around the time she took over the stables. He'd since grown about five times larger but didn't seem to know it. Luckily, he was quite well trained. 

Though, Rey didn't miss that his speckled nose was oriented conveniently close to her bowl of popcorn. She gave him a scratch between the ears, then offered him a few kernels before getting comfortable once again as he scarfed them out of her palm. At some point, she figured she'd be lulled to sleep by the sound of the television and the warm, protective presence of her canine companion, as she usually was. The rest would go as usual too. Up before dawn. Out until after sunset. And no more thinking about Mr. Ren’s appointment, or his motivations, or his shiny hair. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t, and Rey was a woman who kept her promises.


End file.
